Jobs in state and local government can be fulfilling legal careers that provide both a competitive salary and a great work-life balance, speakers told students at a recent talk at Notre Dame Law School as part of Public Interest Month. They encouraged students to not overlook these opportunities even if they have not thought of them as options, or know much about them.

The Notre Dame Law Review hosted some of the leading scholars in intellectual property law for its 2016 symposium: Negotiating Intellectual Property’s Boundaries in an Evolving World. The symposium explored persistent and emerging issues relating to overlap in intellectual property law.

The club at Notre Dame Law School will focus on wrongful conviction education and awareness, while also creating opportunities for students to work on post-conviction, pro-bono cases with licensed attorneys, Gurulé said.

The Taxpayer Advocate Service of the IRS recently approved a three-year grant for the Notre Dame Tax Clinic. The IRS awards matching grants through its Low Income Tax Clinic Program to qualifying organizations to develop, expand, or maintain low-income taxpayer clinics. The mission of the LITC program is to represent low-income taxpayers who have controversies with the IRS; educate clients about their rights and responsibilities as taxpayers; and identify and advocate for issues that systemically impact low-income taxpayers.

Maureen Ohlhausen, commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, recently spoke to Notre Dame Law School students about how the FTC protects consumers and maintains competition through the enforcement of antitrust and patent laws, and how these two legal fields interrelate.

The Notre Dame Law School Moot Court Board recently hosted its inaugural National Appellate Advocacy Tournament for Religious Freedom.

“This event started as an idea last April and truly came to fruition this weekend,” said Matthew Ciulla, 3L, tournament director of the Notre Dame Moot Court Board. “Our tournament brought academics, law students, and attorneys from around the country together to discuss the Establishment Clause, while allowing students to hone their oral advocacy and brief-writing skills.”…

Anthony Kroese, 3L, has been on a mission to take student events and make them more fun, more efficient, more consequential. The Buffalo, New York, native is committed to improving his peers’ social and academic experience, he said, because he wants Notre Dame Law School to stand out from other top-tier law programs.…

Samantha Scheuler spent her summer at the Office of the General Counsel at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to gain a better understanding of the legal issues that can arise for a religious institution and how law and religion intersect in society.

Bigger is not always better. That is what two Notre Dame Law School alumni told students about why they chose to work at a midsize firm in Grand Rapids, Mich., and the benefits that choice provided.

Large firms in metropolitan areas, such as Chicago, and small boutique firms, have their pros and cons, said Matthew O’Rourke, ’06 B.A., ’14 J.D., and Grant Schertzing, ’15 J.D., both associates at Miller Johnson in Grand Rapids. Midsize or regional law firms and midsize cities can provide lawyers with the best of both worlds, they said.…

As an African American growing up in the 1950s in Canton, Ohio, Alan Page thought his opportunities were limited. Most of his peers, like so many before them, would have little choice but to work in the steel mill: work that was physically demanding, dirty, and tedious.

Improving America’s gun problem is difficult and will take compromise from gun-rights and gun-control advocates, said Trevor Burrus, research fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. Burrus spoke to students in a discussion hosted by The Federalist Society.

“Like most questions in public policy, gun policy is hard,” Burrus said. “Getting it right — or even starting to get it right — requires calling out the bad arguments from both sides.”…

The 2016 election will be the first presidential contest in 50 years without the full protection of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It is unclear what that will mean for the country’s electorate.

“We’re at the face of a precipice and we don’t know what’s next,” Luis Fuentes-Rohwer, professor of law at Indiana University Maurer School of Law, told Notre Dame Law students recently. “The Court essentially neutered the Voting Rights Act.”…

Notre Dame Law School faculty will host advising sessions for students as they select courses for next semester and beyond, organized by fields of law. The Law School’s Programs of Study give students the opportunity to build expertise in a specific area of the law.

The advising sessions are designed to provide students with a range of long-term options for courses that will best prepare them for the careers they seek.…

Law students interested in getting into the courtroom and trying cases right out of law school should consider becoming a prosecutor, speakers told students recently.

An entry-level prosecutor usually will start out handling misdemeanor cases, then will move on to more serious cases in areas such as traffic, juvenile, or narcotics court, said Andrew Varga, ’87 J.D., assistant state’s attorney and Consumer Fraud Unit supervisor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.…

Notre Dame Law students and faculty are anticipating the upcoming visit of Alan Page, B.A. ’67, former justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Page is a former Notre Dame All-American football player and NFL Hall of Fame member.

“Justice Page is a titanic figure who has reached the pinnacle of multiple professions in a way that few Americans have,” said Juwan Hubbard, 2L and president of the Black Law Students Association. “He is a complex legal thinker with varied experiences who broadened the intellectual scope of a prominent court in this country. We are delighted to welcome Justice Page to our great university and law school, and eager to hear from a man that so many of us revere.”…

A growing number of accompanied minor children entering the United States need lawyers to help them navigate the immigration court system. Lisa Koop, associate director for legal services for the National Immigrant Justice Center, recently visited Notre Dame Law School and spoke with students to discuss the area of practice. Koop is also an adjunct professor of law at NDLS…

When Scott Miller, a single father of three kids and small business owner, was at risk of losing his home to foreclosure, Notre Dame Law School’s Economic Justice Clinic helped to make sure that didn’t happen.

“Some people can save their homes by themselves, but not very many,” said Judith Fox, clinical professor of law and director of the clinic. “You really need some sort of housing counselor — and they are in short supply — and for the complicated issues, you need a lawyer.”…

I am very sorry to announce that one of our most cherished alumni, Judge Tom O’Toole, passed away on October 13, 2016.

A member of the NDLS Advisory Council since 2011, Tom and his wife Elaine generously endowed the O’Toole Professorship of Constitutional Law, a chair now held by Professor A.J. Bellia. Tom’s generosity went beyond financial support to include the kind of advice and wise counsel that are so important to the functioning of a great law school.…

The choice to start a career in public interest law is personal. The clients of public interest lawyers are usually average people confronted with life’s daily problems, and the issues they deal with reflect broad areas of public concern.

To help expose students to the wide variety of public interest careers — and why they matter —Notre Dame Law School has kicked off Public Interest Month.…

What should you do if you’re a law student and you know want to work as a public-interest lawyer? According to Robert McNamara, senior attorney with the libertarian, public interest law firm, Institute for Justice, it’s simple:

Eighty percent of jobs are landed through networking, ABC News reports. Notre Dame Law School’s Career Development Office can’t stress enough to first-year law students just how important the skill is — and 2L and 3L students described this week just how to do it.

As law students weigh their legal career options, Kevin Culum, ’86 B.S., an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in the Antitrust Division, said that those looking to hit the ground running right after graduation might want to consider working for the DOJ.

The University honored Notre Dame Law School Professor Amy Coney Barrett, Diane and M.O. Miller, II Research Chair in Law, as a 2016 Featured Faculty during a commercial break in the third quarter of the Duke University football game (Sept. 24).

The tips for being a successful lawyer and entrepreneur Eugene Lee, ’95 B.S., ’98 J.D., gave Notre Dame Law School’s Sports, Communications & Entertainment Law Forum wasn’t a typical list of business tips you might find in Forbes.

Lee, president of MBK Sport Management Group, said he was raised with Christian values as a child and he found those values to be at the core of his success with his sports management company.…

David Dalin, a Professor Emeritus of History and Politics at Ave Maria University, will speak to Notre Dame Law students and guests in a talk titled: “On the Hundredth Anniversary of the First Jewish Justice: Louis Brandeis and the Jewish Seat on the Supreme Court.” The event will be at 7 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 6, in 1140 Eck Hall of Law.

Judge Amul Thapar of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky spoke to a packed audience of students and faculty at Notre Dame Law School on September 16, in celebration of Constitution Day.